Pearls
by whybot
Summary: The disposable slaves of Homeworld band together as a tribe, their masters nowhere to be found in the strange world they live in. With their numbers dwindling and more and more growing cracked and chipped, they desperately seek to find their old masters.
A cow had managed to get past a gap in the electric fence. A simple mistake, it had been storming pretty heavily, a branch likely fell and took it out, the fence was rusted anyways and was bound to rust away anyways. It was inevitable. The cow, lazily finding that its patch of green had been eaten away, leaving only the dead, inedible, white grass, decided to move, walking absentmindedly through the gap in the fence and into the woods beside the pasture. It walked with some discomfort through the woods, scanning the ground for familiar grass, something it knew it could eat, sometimes pecking at the wild weeds that laced around tree roots.

It promptly met the spear of the Pearl watching it, the gem grunting as she ran the spear through its skull and out its chin. Pulling her spear back, she held it at the motionless cow's head, eyes wide, teeth grit. Finally, she relaxed, slowly lowering her spear, "Hostile. Gone." Other Pearls came out from the trees, some smaller, some larger, some coffee brown, champagne-colored, bright pink, and pitch black. They all stared over at its body, the more stable ones congregating around it as the others, cracked or otherwise damaged, hung back, picking up what their more pristine sisters were saying.

"Strange."

"Hmm?"

"You'd think they'd come up with better soldiers, yes?"

"Well, that's their problem, isn't it?

"Aren't soldiers supposed to be… Armed?"

"Well, look at its teeth!"

"My notes have suggested that those teeth are primarily used by harmless plant-eaters-"

"Oh, so now because it eats plants it's harmless? Maybe that's what they want us to think!"

"It's so fat…"

"Maybe it's holding a bomb?"

A brief pause, a brief bit of unease sounded out amongst the bickering Pearls.

"Of course!" The rest cried out in unison, relaying the message back to the more damaged pearls, the whole flock of them, about thirty or so in number, retreating about a hundred yards back, covering ground rapidly and perching, looking at the bomb-carrier, the dark red splattering the grass making it easy to pick out.

Time would elapse, maybe a minute, maybe an hour, before one spoke up, dark brown, with long flowing hair. "When's it gonna explode?"

"I-I don't know, Fifteen!" Replied the one who proposed the idea in the first place.

"Like I said, according to my notes, it's harmless."

"We don't know that!"

"Can you name an incident when a non-bipedal organism has attacked us and successfully injured us?"

Silence once again rang out.

"I… I suppose you're right, Seventeen."

Seventeen nodded, a pale white, ghostly Pearl with dark black, flecked eyes, her arms crossed. "Well, it took you long enough to see the light. Now…" She held up her extender arm, fingers twisting into tablet form, hard light filling it in. "I need to take some scans. We might as well cut our losses somewhere, yes?"

She leaped out of the tree she was perched in, walking through the brush, slowly approaching the body of the deceased bovine, scanning its anatomy, comparing it to other live animals and corpses the Pearls had found, Seventeen obtaining a bit more knowledge of the world they found themselves stuck in, her scanning just about done when she was interrupted by a slight click. Looking up, she found herself faced with two barrels, Seventeen having half a second to react as the farmer pulled the trigger.

As it turns out, Seventeen only needed a quarter of a second. Drawing her 'weapon' from the palm of her hand, her serving platter took the birdshot with ease, a few pellets deflecting back to hit the farmer, grazing him. Yelping, he backed up, turning tail and cursing, climbing through the hole in the fence, Seventeen running back, the other Pearls following suit with her.

Soon, they had retreated from the forest, ducking and weaving into brush, between brush, madly scrambling to the long abandoned clearing they claimed home, the Pearls coming into the clearing by nightfall, with Seventeen at the front. The others squirmed, made antsy by the gunfire, nervously chattering.

"Why did it…"

"Did it explode? I couldn't tell!"

"Was it Seventeens' fault?"

"No, no, Seventeen is smart, she didn't…"

"Do you think she'll be okay?"

"Do you think we'll be okay?"

A bright pink Pearl, Twelve, hair done up in a long ponytail that reached up to her waist, the one who eagerly accused the cow of holding a bomb, spoke up. "Now. Today was slightly more eventful than our usual… Activities. But, that's a good thing, right?" She smiled, seeming not to believe what she was saying, but the damaged pearls nodded, their relief melting away to smiles.

"With... with Seventeen's new information, we're almost certain we're on step closer to giving our old Friends a reason to pick us up again, yes? And don't worry everyone, Seventeen is totally okay! Isn't that right, Seventeen?"

She turned to face the other Gem, keeping up that big, wide, Kindergarten-teacher grin.

Seventeen tilted her head, before seeing the crowd of grinning faces behind the pink Gem, managing a smile herself. All smiles, all the time. "Of course! I'm just fine!" She clapped her hands together, wincing a bit as she realized she kept her Extender on, hand clapping against cold Gemtech metal, but she shook off the brief sting of pain. "With this... with this, ah, recent acquisition, I'm certain our old Friends will be super proud of us!" She nodded, matter-of-factly, before turning around, pulling her hand out from the Extender, nervousness flowing through her. Feeling her arms quiver, she hugged herself, hearing Twelve close up her announcements for that day. Pearls needed structure, they needed someone to look up to, and Twelve was happy to take that role. Watching as the other Pearls moved past her, talking amongst themselves, lying out in the field, some immediately going into hibernation for their health, Seventeen sighed, barely noticing Twelve sitting down next to her.

"...What was that?"

"What?"

"You just, kinda collapsed. I had to cover extra hard for you, y'know. This isn't just a one person job!"

"I know."

"So, don't make it harder for me! Do your part, be the 'brains' of this whole operation."

"I almost lost those 'brains' of mine just a few hours ago."

"Well… Don't let them think that!"

"They were there."

"But they don't want to think that you almost scratched up that pretty little gem like yours."

Twelve smiled, that forced grin baring down on Seventeen, the leader 'playfully' tapping that rounded, dark bead on Twelve's forehead, her nail dragging against it a bit more forcefully than the pale white Gem desired.

"Because, it'd just be an awful loss if our 'science expert' came to harm, yes? You think the Peridot you stole that Extendor from will come back for it, luv? You know, I hate liars so, but at least you're a useful one. I expect you to get the girls in high spirits tomorrow, your reckless attitude probably ended up distressing quite a few of them. And, if you end up worrying them even more, which I can't help but expect from sentient furniture such as yourself, well, I'll tie you to a tree and carve exactly what I think of you into your gem, one letter at a time."

She pat Seventeen's back, ruffling her hair and leaving her to sit alone, waving goodbye with a bright, genuine smile. "Toodles!"

Seventeen just lied down on the grass, looking up at the dark, starry night sky, bats sometimes flittering from one canopy in the clearing to the opposite side. Sighing, she did what she usually did, holding her extender up to the sky, pressing and holding the button to try and establish a connection to any Homeworld craft drifting in the area. Of course, she didn't expect it to pick up anything, she tried it countless times, ever since she was abandoned on this garbage world.

Sighing, she watched the symbol on the hologram screen light up, a pyramid blinking on and on. It was searching. She glared at the symbol for a while, almost looking like she was trying to divine the future from it, only to gasp as it suddenly blinked green.

Connection established.

She scrambled, tapping on the screen to set up a microphone connection, shifting eagerly as the speaker faintly crackled to life, the Pearl listening in.

"Uh, hello, I-"

"Did you hear something?"

"What?"

"Eh, nothing. So, how about the Gems down there?"

"Oh, them."

Seventeen quivered, holding the extender close, looking up at the starry sky, squinting at the bats and the stars and wondering which one could have actually been a ship, the conversation continuing.

"Hmmf, they're scrambling, I bet. Praying for their master to come save them."

"Well, isn't that morbid. Then again, I expected nothing else from a warmachine like you, Jasper."

"You're lucky you were the only Peridot in enough trouble to get sent on this mission, otherwise I'd have crushed your Gem in my bare hands."

"Well, have fun flying this ship when you get around to it."

"Ugh, I swear I could just…" A sigh, a bit of silence, "Mm, in any case, is the anti-material laser ready?"

"Of course. It'll melt most of any non-fusion Gems."

"Great. Let's do some damage when the sun rises on that backwater planet. I can't wait to smear these rejects into the Earth."

"Hmm… I think I do hear something, actually." Yelping, Seventeen hugged the Extender tight, and with a crunch, she shattered it, gasping as she pulled back and looked at the broken, fractured piece of Gemtech in her lap, her eyes starting to bead up with tears of blind fear and panic.

Gathering up the pieces, she ran towards the edge of the clearing, dumping them into a foxhole nearby, kicking dirt into it in a blind panic before Twelve found out.

Of course, at that time, Twelve decided to speak up.

"Hello, dear. What's going on? Any reason why you're kicking up dust?"


End file.
